I do not find the right place for this: I am an envato customer, I always get promotion emails but I cant get the promised freebies because the mentioned “verification email” never arrives in my email box. (It is not in the spam etc.) I think it is incorrect to promise something that we customers never get. Dont get me wrong, I have money to buy something, but I feel be treated unfair…
I posted once already. Since then, I have spent the last few hours reading all the comments here. I am deeply disturbed by this experience. First, let me give you some background. I have fibromyalgia and am on a disability pension. I am desperately trying to earn an income from my YouTube videos. Often, my ability to make purchases here comes from donations from my followers. Indeed, most of my licensing is from other non-envato markets, but I like the AE templates here. My music purchases here are directly related to those templates, as they use music from other envato contributors. So here’s what disturbs me:
Being disabled, I’m used to being made feel small and insignificant. My first impression reading through the comments is that the “minority” of users here are being eliminated in favour of the ones that are more profitable. If I remember correctly, I think I read (maybe in another thread) envato has 2 million users? And, if I also remember correctly, the buyers using credits were “only” 5-30%? If that’s the case, that’s 100,000-600,000 buyers. That’s a pretty large minority to tell they don’t matter. I’m basing these figures on what I believe I read. It is repeatedly being demanded that only facts and accurate statistics be mentioned or the figures aren’t meaningful. Well, I’m sorry, I don’t have the energy to go back though the nearly 800 comments to try to find the exact numbers. But you get my point. Accurate or not, a large number of people (long-time customers) are being told they are now insignificant. Seriously? Then, when the envato team finally responds to all the comments, not only do they reinforce this by saying they aren’t going to reverse their decision, they completely ignore everyone’s concerns, offer no solutions, and say the credits system (that didn’t have a rediculous “buyer fee” to help cover those costs) is being scrapped in favour of buy now options (with a buyer fee) that obviously doesn’t cost them as much to maintain. I’m not sure where the “cost” is in an automated system, but that’s beside the point.
I rarely purchase, but, when I do, it’s always one item at a time, several months in between. But a certain moderator continues to repeat over and over, “it’s per transaction; not per item.” My transactions are one item, as in the case of many of the people being told that, so that response gets more angering every time I read it. I’m not going to spend another $20, to avoid paying $2!" A company shouldn’t penalize it’s buyers for making a purchase, PERIOD! It’s nothing short of an unfair cash grab. No, moderator, that’s not speculation. Proof? They are supposedly scrapping the credits because it was costing too much… NO BUYER FEE. Every other website I have every purchased from … NO BUYER FEE. Using “buy now” at envato… thanks for the purchase, and to show how much we appreciate your business, we are going to penalize you by charging you another $2 for buying from us.
So, we have envato executives basically saying, “We heard your multitude of concerns but (not allowed to swear here), we’re not listening and we’re going to do what we want anyway.” And a moderator that claims to be open-minded but resorts to making fun of some and insulting others. Such a degrading way to treat those that helped make the company what it has become. You’ve dug your own grave, envato. I’ve always paid the stupid buyers fee without grumbling but I refuse to deal with the growing number of companies that imply any number of their customers are insignificant, and favour those that they make more money from.
To inject some humour, I will drive my scooter past your store to the next that actually values each and every one of their customers, and laugh with them as we watch yours fall from lack of support.
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Hello, just a quick clarification. The buyer fee has nothing to do with the credit system. You pay a buyer fee no matter what, buyers have been paying this buyer fee since 2015, as you can see on your statements. You are actually talking about the additional handling fee (yes, another fee on top of that). For some unknown reason, handling the transaction is not included in the buyer fee. So, this is even worse than you think.
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If you were referring to my comment, yes, I meant “handling fee.” At this point, my eyes are bugging out… a lot to read here. Thank you for pointing that out. Hopefully, I didn’t make any more mistakes. 
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I was pointing out the ludicrousness and hypocrisy of those two fees, rather than your mistake.
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The last number I got presented is close to 9 million users over all the markets here. Most of them should be active. What the percentage of the 9 million overview I don´t know. But lets assume its only 1%, that still counts for 90 000 customers. A huge number if you look at customers. If you look at 1% as a number of course its a tiny number. It´s all about perspective. Do you choose to look at customers or do you choose numbers in the overall accounting. If you look at each marketplace and each author the differences are also very big. So lets put an end to the generalising.
It is a undeniable fact that this impacts a lot of customers in very bad way. And something clearly has to be done to correct this mess. If the credits system is not reversed back in, at the very least one transaction fee free option is needed.
Either way it´s time for Envato to “invest” again in their “minority”. The second reply from Envato included the word “minority” which added an extra layer of insulting pain to this whole thing, and we are all sorry for this. I don´t think anyone intentionally have meant to insult any customers. Customer Care from Envato would be present at this thread if they had solutions to offer.
Right now orders needs to come from the top management to move this thing forward (the real minority BTW) so all of this current damage can be minimised. Still only a “minority” of customers know about this change so damage is less the sooner Envato wake´s up in this matter.
Anyway, thanks everybody for sharing your voices!
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I would like to expand on my comment about the cash grab not being speculation. Silberstern posted the response to his support ticket. In it, envato says:
“In regards to the handling fees, I would like to reiterate that they are not a fee that is related in any way to cost recovery for payment processing.”
That speaks volumes to me. Somebody quoted an old cliche: “You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.” I haven’t seen a single commenter pleased by this move.
I have very strong morals and am truly offended by companies that exclude minorities for financial reasons, even though the handling fees, in this case, aren’t a huge issue for me (though I strongly disagree with them). But, the lack of consideration for both customers and contributors here is a huge red flag for me. Envato is now blacklisted and they have lost me forever, even if they totally reversed their changes. It’s too late. They have proven that money is more important than those of us that have generated it for them and that’s not something that will change.
I will soon be removing all referrals to envato from all of my youtube videos and will never speak of them again. This is a shame because there are so many talented people here creating amazing content for us to choose from and I enjoyed sharing my sources with my viewers so they could see who created the content I was using.
I thank you @PurpleFogSound and @MojoSoundtrackMusic for replying to my comments. At least I know someone here is listening to “the little guy.” It’s just too bad it has to be under these circumstances.
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As a 500+ item purchaser (Not an author), you obviously don’t realize how we work. We buy items as needed. We don’t plan everything out for days in advance. We always add a couple hundred dollars at a time.
Honestly, this is nothing more than a huge money grab.
PS - ANSWER MY SUPPORT ISSUE. MY ISSUE IS A PLATFORM ISSUE, DON’T PAWN IT OFF ON THE AUTHOR SAYING YOU’RE JUST A “PLATFORM”. MY SCREENSHOT SHOWS ITS YOUR ISSUE. I HAVE SITES TO BUILD!
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I’m a long term customer since 2011. But i will move away and find alternatives to your service. Those price increases here are ridiculous. Especially for Australia. A $29US item becomes now $34.10 after all fees. Thats $8 AUD just in fees and taxes. Cant believe as an Australian company you flog your own people. @Collis Ta’eed CEO, why do we have to pay in USD? Then been charged for currency conversion if Envato is “one of Australia’s most successful tech startups” ?
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This was a ridiculously poor decision and Envato clearly is more interested in serving its lust for money than its customers or artists. This has greatly impacted our workflow and increased our costs. We’re a LONG TERM customer with thousands of $$ in purchases. Now we’ll start looking elsewhere, you’ve not only shot yourself in the foot, but you’ve also hurt your contributing artists that we depend on. Not to mention what we’ll say about you in our broad social media network. Smart move guys, real smart.
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Just finding out about this now… and wow, it sucks. I get why you think it was a good idea, but clearly not enough research was done on how large teams use this service… I’m being kind, but like many others on this thread, I’m actually kind of pissed. Feels like you’ve turned your back on the people who made your company successful.
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We’ve been OK with the price changes (increases), and understand that the artist needs to make a decent living. What’s maddening is the loss of credits and the fact that music isn’t included in Elements. We want a subscription model of some sort because we’re a corporate design team and we don’t want to expense every song on a pcard or expense report. It’s very frustrating because we’ve been customers for nearly 5 years and have referred numerous teams and clients to this service. We’re looking elsewhere starting today. I hope that Envato comes to its senses.
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I’m not thrilled to have to pay $2 for every cut we purchase because we usually download one at a time. We usually load up on credits to download cuts at our convenience. BTW, charging a surcharge to your customers is a breach of contract for most credit card merchants. I’m not a happy camper 
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Hi all.
The Community Team has been compiling all feedback received from Authors and Customers in this thread, and we believe we are now across the range of different concerns that have been raised.
As the discussion has been running for several weeks, we feel it’s now time to draw it to a close. Thank you all for taking the time to share your feedback on these changes. For official updates, please refer to James’ earlier messages here and here.
Why are you closing this thread?
We have been compiling all feedback received in this thread, and we believe we are now across the range of different concerns that have been raised. Thank you to all those who have taken the time to share feedback on this important issue - particularly those of you who rarely post here, and those who created a forum account in order to join this thread.
Why are you removing credits?
Overall usage of the Add Credits option has been declining for many years. After reviewing many factors, including the operational cost of maintaining the system, we made the difficult decision to remove the ability to add new credits. This is the first step in a complex process. We are aware that the change has introduced complications for some customers, and for this we apologize. We are currently exploring ways to address the concerns that have been raised.
Does this mean you’re ignoring us?
Absolutely not. Every single comment on this issue, whether in these forums or directed to us via support tickets and other channels, has been seen, and every voice heard. Senior leaders within Envato are aware of all concerns that have been voiced here.
What if I have a different issue to raise?
If you have concerns about the removal of the Add Credits option that have not already been posted by others in this thread, you can contact us directly by opening a Help ticket - that will go directly to our support team, and they’ll be able to help you out.
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